Summary Of 'The Will To Believe' By William James

In “The Will to Believe”, William James believes that it is not always wrong to believe something based on insufficient evidence. We can see that this belief came to be because James realized that the various beliefs that had been pushed upon him his whole life (that everything had to be rational) actually conflicted with his religious beliefs. It was at this point in his life where James began to feel useless, and decided to turn to philosophy. As he turned to philosophy for comfort, James began to argue that not every belief has to be justified by evidential standards, some in fact can be understood by pragmatic standards. Despite the various controversies present at the time of his paper, James remained strong to his beliefs, especially his religious beliefs. In his paper, James argues that for a belief to be justified using a pragmatic standard,
This means that when a person is confronted with two options, both of them are open to them. More specifically, James explains that a choice is open to a person if somewhere inside of them, they can accept it, but it is closed if the choice present has absolutely no chance of being accepted by a person. To better explain this criteria, we must think of an atheist. To an atheist, the choice of Christianity is an open especially if they live in Western cultures, but religions such as Shintos (an old Japanese religion) is closed to them because there is no way they could accept a belief that is not part of their surroundings. Besides that, James argues that a choice must also be momentus. This means that the option must be important to the person, it must matter to them. Finally, James states that the choice must be forced, meaning it must be made in the moment, making it an immediate choice. In his paper, James explains that he understands that not all choices would meet these criteria, but for the choices that do, then it is okay to believe on a basis of insufficient